Iron Fist was spun off from Marvel Premiere into the solo series Iron Fist, which ran 15 issues (November 1975 – September 1977). The solo series was written by Claremont and pencilled by Byrne. A subplot involving the Steel Serpent left unresolved by the cancellation of the series was wrapped up in issues #63–64 of Marvel Team-Up, the latter of which featured Rand kiss Misty Knight, marking the first interracial kiss and first long-term interracial couple in Marvel Comics history, as well as the first couple with an age difference in which the woman was older than her man.
Civil War II, which debuted in June 2016, is a sequel to the 2006 “Civil War” storyline.
A new Inhuman, with the ability to profile the future, emerges and the ramifications ripple into every corner of the Marvel Universe. Lines are drawn, bodies fall, and the Marvel Universe will be rocked to it’s very core.
In April of 2015, DC began “Justice League: The Darkseid War”, which would be the final installment in Geoff Johns five year run of Justice League. The event consisted of 10 Justice League issues, 6 one-shots, and one Special issue. The story took hidden elements from John’s run as well as answering all questions posed since the beginning.
In 2000, Banner and the three Hulks (Savage Hulk, Grey Hulk, and the “Merged Hulk”, now considered a separate personality and referred to as the Professor) become able to mentally interact with one another, each personality taking over the shared body as Banner began to weaken due to his suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease. During this, the four personalities (including Banner) confronted yet another submerged personality, a sadistic “Devil” intent on attacking the world and attempting to break out of Banner’s fracturing psyche, but the Devil was eventually locked away again when the Leader was able to devise a cure for the disease using genes taken from the corpse of Brian Banner. In 2005, it is revealed that the Nightmare has manipulated the Hulk for years, and it is implied that some or all of the Hulk’s adventures written by Bruce Jones may have been just an illusion.
In 2006, the Illuminati decide the Hulk is too dangerous to remain on Earth and send him away by rocket ship which crashes on Planet Sakaar ushering in the “Planet Hulk” storyline that saw the Hulk find allies in the Warbound, and marry alien queen Caiera, a relationship that was later revealed to have born him two sons: Skaar and Hiro-Kala. After the Illuminati’s ship explodes and kills Caiera, the Hulk returns to Earth with his superhero group Warbound and declares war on the planet in World War Hulk (2007). However, after learning that Miek, one of the Warbound, had actually been responsible for the destruction, the Hulk allows himself to be defeated, with Banner subsequently redeeming himself as a hero as he works with and against the new Red Hulk to defeat the new supervillain team the Intelligencia.
The events of Predator #1-4 revolve around NYC Detective Schaefer, the brother of Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer. Detective Schaefer and his partner, Detective Rasche, discover a Predator in New York City during a drug deal gone bad. Schaefer believes the Predator and a mysterious army general have a connection to his brother, Dutch, which leads Schaefer on a hunt into Colombia. There in South America Schaefer has yet another run in with a Predator as well as a Colombian drug lord – an old NYC adversary. Successfully eluding both, Schaefer is transported back to the U.S. only to find a government plot to hand him over to the Predators. Predator #1-4 are collected together as the trade paperback: Predator: Concrete Jungle. The title should not be confused with the game of the same name. The story was also presented as a paperback mass market novel which closely follows the events depicted in the comic.
Adventures into the Unknown is an amazing collection of science-fiction / horror / “twilight zone-ish” stories from writers during the 1940’s through the 1970’s. Featuring the storytelling talents of; Roger Broughton, Adam Barr, Tom Himes & Nicola Cuti.
With artwork featuring legends; Frank Frazetta, Joe Staton, Kenneth Landau, Mike Zeck, Tom Sutton, Enrique Nieto & Sam Glanzman.
Adventures into the Unknown #1 CGC 9.8 White Pages $79
Adventures into the Unknown #2 CGC 9.8 White Pages $59
Squee! was a four-issue series by Jhonen Vasquez, published by Slave Labor Graphics, featuring a supporting character from Vasquez’s previous series Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. The series focuses on a young boy named Todd Casil, otherwise known as Squee. An introverted and bullied little kid with a less than supportive family, Squee has been forced to mature a bit more quickly than his peers. He is fond of writing, but only receives criticism from his teacher and taunting from his classmates. Any attempts he makes to deflect these hostilities only results in being shoved into the dirt or otherwise further humiliated. Squee’s mother is addicted to some form of pill and spends a lot of time lying around in a nearly incoherent state. She often forgets who Squee is, or that she even has a child. His father, painfully aware of Squee’s existence, loathes the boy and never forgets to mention that he blames Squee for “ruining” his life, claiming that he “hasn’t smiled once since [Squee] was born”. Having little patience for anything Squee says or does, he eventually becomes convinced that Squee is mentally unstable, and by the end of the series, has him committed to the “Defective Head Meat Institute”. Squee also has a grandfather who justifiably believes his children are only waiting for him to die to collect some kind of inheritance. His grandfather claims to keep healthy and young by consuming his children’s first-borns, and subsequently attempts to devour Squee, only to reveal in horrifying fashion that he is in fact a cyborg and quite possibly insane.
Lucifer was the main character in an eponymous series that ran for 75 issues and the Lucifer: Nirvana one-shot, from June 2000 to August 2006, the entire run of which was written by Mike Carey (this series was preceded by Carey’s work in 1999, The Sandman Presents: Lucifer mini-series). To Carey, the essence of the character was:
We play safe. Most of us do, most of the time… but Lucifer doesn’t know the meaning of safe, and he never bothers to look down at the tramlines. He goes wherever the hell he likes, picks his fights where he finds them and generally wins… following [his] own will and [his] own instincts to the very end of the line, no matter what the obstacles are star.
In the series, Lucifer runs a piano bar (an element introduced in the Sandman story “The Kindly Ones”) called “Lux” in Los Angeles, with the assistance of his mistress, Mazikeen who is a Lilim, one of the race descended from Lilith. Lucifer is portrayed as a sophisticated and charming man, in accordance with the stereotypical gentleman-devil.
Attacked by the forces of fellow Cabal member Doctor Doom, T’Challa is left comatose. His sister Shuri is trained as the next Panther, with the mantle passing onto her officially after T’Challa awakens from his coma and attempts to recover from his injuries.
In the aftermath, T’Challa loses all of his enhanced attributes given to him by being the panther totem. As a result, he works with his sorcerer, Zawavari, to accumulate a replacement. He has since made a pact with another unknown Panther deity, returning his attributes to an even higher level as well as placing incantations on his body, making himself highly resistant to most magic and mystic assaults. This has all been done in preparation for the imminent battle with Doctor Doom, which culminated in T’Challa rendering all of the processed vibranium inert to give his people a chance to rebuild without their dependence on the element.
An all-new, all-creepy one-shot set in the DC Universe! Martha Kent fights for her life against a creature from a spacecraft that lands in front of her farmhouse. A young woman is possessed by the spirit of a murderous Amazon warrior. The last surviving member of the Justice League faces down a horror beyond imagining. All these and more are what happens when the most exciting new voices in contemporary horror fiction are paired with the talents of some of the greatest artists in the DC firmament! And if that isn’t enough to scare you, there’s Keith Giffen, too.
EHT Comics 